THE TIME TRAVELER’S ALMANAC: AUGUSTA PRIME BY KARIN TIDBECK

Today I’m once again posting a short piece as part of Time Travel Thursday – which I was introduced to by DJ at My Life My Books My Escape. The other bloggers who take part have been gradually working their way through the stories every Thursday. I’m a little late at getting on board and I might not be able to post every week but I’d like to join in as I’ve had this book for ages and this gives me the perfect inspiration to pick it up.

Today’s story Augusta Prime by Karin Tidbeck

Section Mazes and Traps

Genre: Science Fiction

Rating: 3.5/5 Rating

I actually quite enjoyed this story, it was short and, well, not really sweet. We start with Augusta playing a game of croquet on the lawn. Augusta is a bit nervous because this is a very important gathering with only the most note worthy people being invited but, nonetheless, the sun is shining and what could possibly be more civilised? Well, the game here has different rules than the game we’re familiar with – it seems the objective here is not to hit the ball through the hoop but to whack it with the mallet and try and hit as many people, pages and other servants, (not guests) as possible. Nasty. Straight away you know you’re somewhere slightly off kilter. The brief glimpse we have of the setting almost has a Wonderland feel to it but the indolent, lazy, bored feeling of the players, their cruelty and (lets face it) the reference to changelings makes us aware that we’re perhaps in a fae court?

From this point on the text jumps around a good deal but we learn that Augusta has found a ‘human’ timepiece (okay a watch) and this makes her curious. Her curiosity leads to investigations and questions, she keeps notes to remind herself of what she’s learned and eventually she asks her ‘important’ questions of somebody who is most wise. According to the proverb – curiosity killed the cat – that isn’t a spoiler as Augusta doesn’t actually die at the end of the book – however her curiosity has certainly led to the last place she wanted to be.

This is a lovely twist on the myth of the fae – the difference in their world particularly concerning time and their immortality. I like the way the story is placed in the ‘mazes and traps’ section which is very pertinent.

I did not know this was based off of the myth of fae – that something that would have been nice to add to the “author info” paragraph before the story started, since this story was bit more on the bizarre side.

I figured there would be people out there that would really like it. While my score was lower, there nothing about that I thought was bad – simply wasn’t my cup of tea – but I could see the areas that could appeal to other readers.

Well, feeling a bit bashful now, I could of course be totally wrong and this might have absolutely nothing to do with the fae! It was just the way I read it. You know, in UF fae are always very long lived (if not immortal), they’re cruel and bored with life usually, and the time in the world of fae is different than ours so a week spent with them can be a year or longer in our time. I was thinking that they have so much time that everything becomes the same? And the ending – SPOILER ALERT – I thought that because Augusta was now aware of time she’s been cast into our world where she will now age like the rest of us mere mortals. That was my take – but, I’m thinking perhaps I went off on a mission!
Lynn 😀

Going from smacking poor servants with croquet balls to finding mysterious time pieces…even if it doesn’t have anything to do with the fae, I can easily imagine all these events being at home in a mad faerie court!